Finance Geek

Ken Lewis is expected to be reelected to Bank of America’s board but a proposal to split the CEO and Chairman roles is too close to call, according to preliminary results from the bank’s shareholder meeting today. Shortly after 1 p.m. EDT, the company sai

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From The Business Insider, April 29, 2009:Six banks have failed the preliminary stress test, Bloomberg says.  They’re now appealing. 
The government wants these banks to raise capital by converting
preferred stock to common stock, which would

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I’m at an AMR organised local search conference where lots of local advertisers have been talking about how they spend their marketing budgets and where they are getting the best bang for their buck.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the main story is the transition away from print and onto the web.  In this case the dying print format is the Yellow Pages style directory.  Across the board advertisers seem to be reducing their spend, preferring instead to spend money on the web, largely on Google Adwords.

For example at Rentokil web enquiries passed Yellow Pages enquiries by volume in 2007 and the former continues to grow as the latter declines - and at some point it will stop becoming viable for Yellow Pages to publish their annual directory.  Apparently the Danish Yellow Pages equivalent is already considering switching to bi-annual publication.

One other interesting titbit of information is that for Rentokil the quality of Yellow Pages enquiries is higher (15% more of them are genuine sales opportunities), but the cost of web enquiries is 60-90% lower, depending on geography.

One category that hasn’t been mentioned much is online directories.  It seems that local advertisers are more focused on Google Adwords.  There were some stats which suggested that Yellow Pages online isn’t delivering much volume.

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China’s astronomical growth is one of the great economic and geopolitical stories of the modern era. But it’s also coming to an end, says George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR and author of The Next 100 Years.”China has had extraordinary growth for 30

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Nervous investors are fixed on the tests’ outcomes, which means companies’ stock prices will be affected.

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Can’t spare hundreds of dollars a month? You can nickel-and-dime your way into a comfortable cash cushion. Readers share their tips for saving when money’s tight.

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Google’s attempt to build the online library of the future hits a snag after a judge gives authors four extra months to decide whether to fight or accept a proposed class action settlement. The delay could give critics of the deal more time to organize opposition.

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Remember the looming Social Security crisis? If you don’t, you’re not alone. The credit crisis and economic downturn have monopolized public attention to such an extent that the Social Security crisis that was at the center of the policy debate during President George W. Bush’s second term now seems forgotten.

This is unfortunate, for not only has Social Security not been fixed, but reform, if done right by tapping into the power of the market, can help provide new capital, which American businesses now desperately need.

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Chrysler has reached separate deals with the UAW and its bondholders that may help the automaker avoid bankruptcy, although the White House won’t rule out that outcome. …

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The opening of the new, $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium, with its $2,625 front-row seats and an average ticket price of $72, has sparked as much commentary and controversy as the team itself and its $400 million stable of off-season free agent acquisitions. Empty seats in some of the priciest sections have critics proclaiming that the Yankees miscalculated demand. The team, in turn, contends that it’s already sold 85 percent of its premium seats (average price, $510) for the year and that virtually all of the stadium’s ordinary, non-premium seats are gone at ticket prices that are on average 75 percent higher than last year.

The truth is that despite the dizzying ticket prices, time and demographics are on the side of the Yankees–and most other teams, too. Even the worst U.S. recession in more than a generation, even here in New York, the home of our sickly financial markets, isn’t likely to moderate the upward spiral of ticket prices. Why? Because for decades now major professional sports leagues, and especially Major League Baseball, have used certain cartel powers tolerated by government to restrict supply, even as we as a country have grown more populous and richer (the current recession notwithstanding). Pro sports aren’t retailing, where every economic uptick finds businesses elbowing each other for prime locations. Instead, the leagues have divided the country nicely, and short of some kind of major court decision or legislation in Washington that drastically reshapes the way leagues must do business (which would probably disconcert the very fans who abhor rising prices), the cost of attending games just about everywhere is likely to continue growing at a faster rate than most prices. The Yankees are merely leading the way.

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Remember back in 2000 when the Super Bowl was littered with dot com ads? Well
the bubble burst and most everyone learned a valuable lesson: Startups should
spend their millions on building businesses instead.So it was a bit of a
shock when online vi

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From The Business Insider, April 28, 2009: It’s not good news that Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) have
been told to raise more capital following the completion of the Fed’s
stress tests. …

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Unlike the prevailing Web 2.0 practice of
build-a-product-users-love-first-and-monetize-later, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has
always said the users are just one of the three “customers” Hulu serves. The other two are the networks that give Hulu

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Overcoming fears of a swine flu pandemic and the government telling Bank of America and Citigroup to raise more capital, stocks were marginally higher midday Tuesday. The turnaround from early weakness was spurred, in large part, by another round of bett

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LA PORTE CITY — Heavy rains chased farmers from the fields this weekend but not before significant planting progress was made last week.

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